Over a span of roughly five years, after being out of the protection school, photo centered artist Ashley Gillanders has been making gradual advances in her photographic practice. Partaking in residencies and mentorship programs in Winnipeg, Bnaff, and New York, exhibiting in various artist-run centers locally, receiving artist’s grants and awards, Gillanders’ work has gone from exploring human interaction with the built environment to human interaction with the natural environment and the overlap of the two. Her work has developed onto a practice that joins conventional and experimental processes to photography. Gillanders’ new collection of work counter acts what we commonly know the lens-based medium to be—both in its form and function. Recalling her formative interest in human interaction with nature, she uses tropical plants that becomes domesticized in our homes as a jumping off mark to make three-dimensional photographic arrangements; disrupting the traditional aspect of a photograph while  at the same  time maintaining it in a contemporary state. We were very lucky to catch some time with Gillanders at her soon to be former office [where she’s Photo Technician & Facilities Coordinator] as she prepares to make her way to Chicago to start her graduate studies at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. We talk among other things, about her next chapter in her work, what she’s going to miss in her home city once she makes the move, and who her favorite Ashley is.